LOST & FOUND #1 …
Excellent Reading:
--- The Lost Discoveries from the beginning of Recorded History to the Renaissance --- Lost Discoveries - Dick Teresi.
LOST & FOUND
#1 Ancient Science
According to Claude Levi-Strauss ...
I. * The use of FIRE civilized man – and started war.
II. * The use of the COMPASS allowed for world wide community – and world wide dominance.
III. * The use of PAPER / PRINTING allowed for common people to learn – and for mass deception through propaganda.
IV. * The use of IRON made it possible to make plowshares – and swords.
TECHNOLOGY
- Technology is “The systematic treatment of an art.”
- Technology did not change our consciousness … our consciousness made technology.
- When we are ready for the technology of harmony or peace, we will discover it right under our noses.
- Vulcanization of rubber was 1,000 years before Goodyear
- Bessemerization of iron was 1,000 years before Bessemer
- Saturday Night Live did sketch of aliens arriving on earth and demanding earthlings to bow down - but aliens were not as advanced - they had not even created their own spaceship - they had found it
- Though the Spaniards had better weapons, the Aztecs watched Spaniards pour oil on wounds while the Aztecs already had antibiotics
- Chinese had toothpaste when many Europeans barely had teeth
- Chinese also had shipbuilding: fore & aft rigging, lateen sail, stern & post rudder, and water tight bulkheads - they also had good compasses - so they could have outdone Columbus
- In fact while Columbus got funds, Zheng He, chief admiral of emperor Ming, sent fleet of ships with thousands of sailors, canons, etc. to India and Africa - he is the greatest explorer of exploration period
- America would have different ancestors if the Chinese had gone to theNew World!
MATHEMATICS
- Indians: [zero], [negative numbers], 1,000 years before Europe, [calculus] centuries before Leibniz, ['Arabic Numerals'] (which came from India 876 A.D., Gwalior, India)
- Mayans: zero, same time as Indians
- Sumerians: [algebra] 1,000 years before Greeks
- Egyptians: 18th century B.C., simple equations
- Babylonians: 3rd millenium B.C., base 60 (sexigesimal) - Copernicus used this also
- Mesopotamians: 2,000 B.C., tables of squares
- Arabs: algebra & decimals
- Greeks: treat mathematics as ideas (abstractly)
- Chinese: ahead of Western Europeans
- Ethiopians: ahead of Western Europeans
- Galileo later: physics, pendulum, telescope, strings, acceleration, geometrical view
- Polynesians: sailed to Americas centuries before Columbus & settled islands of Hawaii to New Zealand
ASTRONOMY
- Tycho Brahe (16th century) followed al-Mamun who made a 56' radius stone sextant with a 20' radius quadrant, which was larger and better than Brahe's.
- Chinese found size of earth nearly 1,000 years before Eratosthenes
GEOLOGY
- Chinese: Seismograph: 132 A.D. by Cheng Heng - it had 1 of 8 dragon heads drop a ball to a toad in the direction of the earthquake
- First Compass: 475 - 221 B.C. - it was spoon-like with a loadstone
Questions
- What is Claude Levi-Strauss saying about the use of paper/printing?
If untruth is printed, it enslaves; if truth is printed, it frees. - What is the point of the Saturday Night Live reference?
The point is that power – in this case from guns – determines the ruling class – not advanced consciousness or culture. - Where is Teresi going with his statements that both rubber and steel were really discovered 1,000 years earlier than our history books traditionally report?
Teresi is reminding us that our ancestors already invented great things much earlier that were forgotten, then later, remembered. - Can you tell who the conquerers were, by the author's insinuation - the Aztecs or the Spaniards?
The Spaniards were the conquerors. - Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900 - 1900 - claims 2 centers of invention transformed history - 1) Middle East: Sumeria and successors 2) Mexico: Olmecs and others - he says not one of dozen most important inventions come from Europe - it was just a transfer station. What do you think Teresi is going to say to this, based on his statement about toothpaste?
Teresi would agree. He also sees Europe as a place that united East and West; but he doesn’t see it as an originator. - Why do you think an entire culture did not use the number ‘zero’?
Perhaps a religious feeling of avoiding nothingness - Why do you think the Mayans came up with zero at the same time as the Indians?
Universal mind - Why do you think hardly anyone did experiments before Galileo, then – from then on – many people did?
Universal mind went from pre-analytical to analytical